Hello All,

It is spring in the north east, and that means it is
time once again for winter kills to be blamed on CCD.
Here is one such list of symptoms recently posted on another list.
And already believed to be CCD by the poster.
I have kept anonymous, and listed my explanation for the symptoms.
You may disagree, but that would be good, I want to hear your opinions
concerning the symptoms.

Symptoms 1* Thru 5*

1* Every CCD hive has no bees at all, not even dead ones.
2* Every CCD hive is full of honey, and honey is still capped.

These symptoms were common well before CCD arrived.
Can be dwindling due to parasites.  That no dead bees are present
indicates to me that death occurred last fall, or very early winter.

3* No robbing, even though there has been a few warm days lately. However, 
all hives that died from starvation have been robbed of the few stores 
remaining on the outside frames. I even found the cappings on the bottom 
boards. But no discarded cappings in the CCD hives.


For the purpose of illustrating my answer:
I’ll call the “CCD Colonies”,  which I think are:  
‘absconding / dwindling colonies’ 
I’ll call the “starvation colonies,  which I think are:  
‘cold starved colonies’

First, the ‘absconding / dwindling colonies’:
Consider that when a colony dwindles or absconds in the late fall, They 
are not in a process of opening new stores, they are weak and incapable of 
this, they area in a contraction mode away from stores, and abandoning the 
colony.  Therefore, you will tend to see in these ‘absconding / dwindling 
colonies’ with many frames of capped stores, and nearly no uncapped stores 
(the lack of un capped stores is a key point here)

Second, the ‘cold starved colonies’  
(as opposed to ‘isolation starved colonies‘):
Consider that when a colony dies with cluster in place, this could perhaps 
indicate a cold starved condition, where although the cluster is in 
contact with open cells of stores, it is too small in numbers and unable 
to generate the heat needed to keep warm.  Cold starved colonies are in 
contact with stores, and usually can be found with uncapped cells and 
exposed stores at the leading edges of the cluster.  And often, isolation 
starved colonies can also be found with open cells of honey.  (Open cells 
of capped stores a key point here)  

Answer to symptom #3*:
It is perfectly logical that the robbers would choose the cold starved 
colonies to rob over the absconding colonies.  This is where the smell, 
the attractant, the ’uncapped stores’ are located, and perhaps old queen 
odor.  The scouts will ZERO in on this open stores smell and that’s where 
they will start robbing FIRST.  You may have noticed this in observing 
early spring robbing, where several dozen bees will be in a frenzy to rob 
a 2 inch area of exposed cells when there are 10,000 square inches of 
capped cells all around them which they totally ignore, working out from 
the uncapped stores to rob the rest.    

4* All hives that died of starvation and did not have a mouse guard, had a 
mouse or two in them. Even the two hives that I found alive in Location 4 
had a mouse that I chased out.
5* All hives that died from CCD did not have a mouse, or any other living 
thing in them.

I have to say this is a fascinating symptom, and again explainable.
Mice are "omnivores." That means that like humans, they eat both meat and 
plants. Mice will naturally choose the hives having bees in them, for a 
proper diet.  A mouse would not want to be without a fresh diet of bees.

Best Wishes,
Joe Waggle

****************************************************
* General Information About BEE-L is available at: *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm   *
****************************************************